He sang well by today's standards, obviously, but that was his worst period vocally up until 2013. It's no coincidence that all big ballads got dropped ant the TLFR versions got played instead.

One could easily watch videos today from that time period and say "so what, he couldn't sing Always, big deal! He could still sing Bad Medicine, Bad Medicine, HAND, etc. which he can't today", but since he managed to up his range in 2008, it added to the negative perception to 2003-2006.

You know what's the saddest thing? If Jon keeps going for another decade or so (God I hope he doesn't) under the Bon Jovi name, there will be people on this board that will say "was he really that bad in mid 2010s? he still sounded OK-ish on electric Saturday Night and Who Says was decent".